Italian Ercole Baldini competes in the Week of Records at the Vigorelli in 1956. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Mark Cavendish will set off on Sunday in search of a second victory in the Milan-San Remo classic, to go with the one he took by less than a tyre's width in a thunderous finish five years ago. If the Manx Missile has an hour or so to spare on Saturday, he could do much worse than feed his appetite for cycling history by taking a short taxi ride to Milan's Vigorelli velodrome, which is open to the public this weekend as a prelude to the restoration with which it hopes to celebrate its 80th anniversary.

The wooden boards of the Vigorelli – once known to cycling fans as the pista magica, or magic track – have a matchless tale to tell. Opened in 1935, and distinguished by the Futurist architecture of its external structure, this was the site of several successful attempts on the one-hour record, track cycling's blue riband, first by the immortal Fausto Coppi in 1942. Countless epic two-wheeled battles, including the world championships of 1939, 1951, 1955 and 1962, were fought on its bankings.

But no cyclist has raced on the 397m track since 1999. In recent years the only sporting activity to take place within its precincts has been American football, on a pitch laid out on the infield, where the world's greatest riders once checked their chain tension and warmed up on their rollers. The board track, last relaid in 1992, is warped and rotten in places where the roof above the grandstands and the track has not kept off the rain.

Its history acknowledged only by the existence of a rather nondescript Vigorelli café on an adjacent street corner, the place became an embarrassment to the city. Plans for demolition were frequently announced, with offices and shops scheduled to spring up on the site. Last year those schemes nearly came true. But then, thanks to a group of energetic local enthusiasts who formed the Comitato Velodromo Vigorelli, an effective pressure was finally brought to bear.

This week's announcement that the municipal authorities had approved the renovation represented the final removal of a long-standing threat. The Vigorelli will retain its location, adjacent to a new development of three spectacular towers, whose developers will fund renovation costs estimated at around €5m.

The campaigners have stepped back from a relatively lavish original plan, which envisaged scrapping the old surface and building a new 250m track to Olympic standards. Under a more realistic Plan B, there will be a renovation of the existing track. The Vigorelli will be used not just for cycling but for boxing, and the gridiron footballers of the Milan Rhinos will be invited to stay, having played a part in keeping the place at least partially open. Other sports may eventually join them.

Those who visit this weekend will also see a plaque commemorating the Beatles' concert in the summer of 1965, the first date of the group's final European tour. The open days are sponsored by Italy's equivalent of English Heritage, an acknowledgement of the velodrome's value. They will also feature an exhibition of historic racing bikes, including the one on which Coppi set his record more than 70 years ago.

That bike has a special connection with the Vigorelli, since its steel frame was hand-made by a former racer named Faliero Masi in a workshop beneath one of the grandstands. Faliero is long dead, but his son Alfredo still maintains the premises, commissioned by collectors to restore his father's creations and occasionally using the old methods to satisfy an order for a new machine. The committee hopes that Masi, now 69, will stay on to greet visitors anxious for a glimpse of traditional skills that are once again in demand.

The efforts to preserve the Vigorelli were inspired by a similar campaign in recent years at Herne Hill, the velodrome used for the 1948 Olympic Games. Unlike the Milan track, South London's shallow-banked 450m concrete bowl, opened in 1891, never fell completely silent, but its continued existence was in doubt until a group called the Friends of Herne Hill stepped forward four years ago and devised a programme aimed at ensuring its survival in tandem, rather than in competition, with the new indoor Olympic velodrome a few miles north. Now the organisation has 600 members, the track has been resurfaced with the aid of a £200,000 grant from British Cycling, and planning permission is awaited for a new pavilion, designed by the architect of the 2012 Olympic velodrome, and already awarded £1.5m of funding from Sport England and the London Marathon Trust.

This week Herne Hill learned that its annual Good Friday meeting, first held in 1903 and attended by crowds of 10,000 in the days when the greats of cycling competed there, is being moved by its promoters to Stratford. There the racing will be safe from the Easter weather, the cause of cancellations in recent years. But if an open-air track of non-Olympic dimensions will never again be a centre for elite racing, that does not mean it cannot establish a new relevance.

Representatives of the Friends of Herne Hill and the Comitato Velodromo Vigorelli told me this week that their shared emphasis on community engagement is forming a basis for future co-operation. Plans are already advanced for the creation of a Network of Historic Velodromes, a project in which the Italian and English tracks hope to be joined by the Roubaix velodrome in France, a concrete bowl opened in 1895 and the scene of the finish of the annual Paris-Roubaix one-day race. Eventually they would like to be joined by other stadiums with similar histories and needs.

The secret is to identify a new role amid the explosion of interest in cycling. The romance of the past is fine, but only if it can be turned into a platform for a real engagement in the present. If Olympic medals and world records are no longer at stake, then these tracks remain ideal for giving newcomers their first taste of track racing. There will still be a Good Friday meeting at Herne Hill this year, but it will be a showcase for inter-schools races, for a disability cycling group, for women-only groups, for under-eights and over-40s, and others.

Imagine a future in which generations of young riders, having gained their initial experience at Herne Hill, the Vigorelli and Roubaix, travel to each other's tracks to compete for individual and team trophies. The volunteer campaigners who pursue this vision, using their commitment and imagination to fight off profiteers and overcome municipal inertia, are on to something very good indeed.